Elciego

The last stop on our Spanish getaway was in Elciego, which is in La Rioja region. Before getting to our hotel, we stopped in Haro to see a crazy festival where people shoot each other with water guns full of Rioja wine (Haro is the rioja wine making capitol of the world). While we arrived too late to see the fight, we did see some evidence. After leaving Haro and getting slightly lost, we arrived at our hotel...
Nope, that is not a museum. Gehry designed this hotel for the Marques de Riscal vineyard. It took years for him to be swayed into doing the project, and Gehry only agreed after having a vintage bottle of wine from his birth year, or so the story goes. It was the most spectacular hotel and we could not believe we had one of the 44 guest rooms!

The hotel over look a magnificent church that could be seen from our room and all of the Rioja region vineyards. The on-site Gastronomic restaurant was awarded a Michelin star. We chose to eat at the more "traditional" restaurant, and thought the food was excellent.

This will probably go down as the coolest hotel on our trip!

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